


take me somewhere nice

by nxpenthe



Series: jigsaws, love letters [8]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 22:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19935760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nxpenthe/pseuds/nxpenthe
Summary: in which love is love does not mean love.in which both feel too much but neither understands (they don't want to).in which the ocean is as beautiful as it is cruel.





	take me somewhere nice

**Author's Note:**

> written entirely on my phone at 2 am, no beta, no revisions. 
> 
> title taken from mogwai's song of the same title
> 
> mentions of non-explicit suicidal intentions and abuse

It starts with nothing and ends with something. 

It ends with everything and starts with absolutely nothing. 

Jinsol feels. 

She feels more than she should because that's all she can do. She feels because she has to, because she was born with too big of a heart, too big of a smile. 

\--

She meets Jungeun accidentally. 

They connect over mutual friends -- Jungeun never talks much, but Jinsol likes her anyways. Jinsol likes how cool she is, how much she pays attention to her. She likes how she can pretend Jungeun pays attention to her more than the others. She pretends that it means something when Jungeun brings her into conversation when she's wandering by herself, or that Jungeun might pick up on the shudder of her heart when thin fingers wrap around her wrist, pulling gently, softly, until they stand side-by-side, shoulders knocking into one another. 

Jungeun smiles at her like she's the world. 

Jinsol let's her because Jungeun is her ocean. 

\--

But the oceans are cruel as they are beautiful. 

The gentle waves crash against the shore, knocking delicate shells until they spread beneath her toes in fine grain white sand. Just like these shells, Jinsol sits at the corner of the beach, shrouded by a gentle cloud hanging low in the sky, its buttery surface blooming until the shadow casts itself on top of the waves. 

They fought again today.

Jungeun won't talk to her. 

Jinsol knows it's her fault. She knows because as cruel as Jungeun can be, she was the first to lash out. 

_"I hate when you do that!"_

_"Do what, Jinsol?"_

_"Pretend like you know everything! I hate how you treat me like I'm fucking stupid -- I'm not a child!"_

_"Then stop acting like one."_

_"Fuck you, Jungeun. This is why no one fucking wants you."_

_Jungeun had reared, visibly shocked. Jinsol had left before allowing the apology to slip from her lips._

The waves lap at her feet, gently caressing her skin with freezing water before retreating back to the ocean blue. She wraps the towel around her body, tighter and tighter, her fingers reaching upwards. Nails dig into the gentle skin of her neck. Her life beats pitifully beneath strong fingers that threaten to crush her trachea. 

If she didn't have a voice, she wouldn't have said those things. 

The cloud disappears amongst her contemplation. 

The sun appears -- and with it, Jungeun. 

"Jinsol," gentle hands wrap around her throat, pulling at her fingers. The pressure alleviates -- Jinsol breathes. 

"I'm sorry," she says, whispered and quiet, unable to look at the other in the face. 

"I'm sorry."

\--

But sorries can only go so long.

She's not quite sure why Jungeun confesses to her. She's not quite sure why Jungeun says all these sweet words, these loving words, for someone that only makes her sad.

And although Jinsol feels the blush creep on her cheek and her heart pound pitifully against her ribs, she flounders her reply. 

"I'm sorry."

Jungeun crumbles. 

Jinsol thinks she sees heartbreak for the first time. It's cruel and beautiful, just like the ocean, just like the sky.

Jungeun is as beautiful sad as she is happy. There is no ugly transformation as her lips curl into a bitter smile -- just deep terrible loneliness that clutches at the heartstrings of her own rushing pulse. 

She misses the crushing weight against her throat. 

"I'm sorry," she says again, wishing, hoping, she could reciprocate the words of love. Another "I'm sorry" leaves, quieter than the last, softer than anything she's ever said before. 

But apologies can only go so far. 

\--

They love each other with more words than Jinsol is able to think of. She can feel it in the way they lingering each other's presence, she can see it in the way Jungeun stares longingly when she thinks she isn't looking. 

They can sense it because that's who they are -- hopelessly, desperately, in love with nothing more than the entire world against them. 

Jinsol is at the ocean again. Jungeun is too, sitting on a towel just an arms length away. They watch as a seagull crows above their heads, diving into the calm waves to emerge with a struggling fish that's already crammed halfway down its throat. 

"Why did you say no?"

Jungeun is the first to break the silence. She gnaws nervously on her bottom lip, white teeth breaking pink skin for red spots of blood to spring forward.

Jinsol shrugs. It's a heavy action done with too much thought, too many emotions. 

"Because I love you."

The answer means nothing and everything at once -- Jinsol knows Jungeun understands, but the latter rejects it anyways. 

"Why?"

A heavy breath expands her chest. Fingers creep towards her neck once more, the pads of her fingertips already pushing against the arteries in her neck, the veins of blue that push life into her. 

"You know why."

Jungeun bristles. "I don't."

"You do." 

She does. 

Jungeun does but refuses to acknowledge the answer hanging heavily in the air. 

"Don't be with someone that makes you sad, Jungeun."

"Then stop making me sad."

The words dig in sharper than Jinsol ever expects them to. It slices her already too-big heart in two, and suddenly the ocean is no longer beautiful. The ocean is angry and mean and cruel, and the cold droplets that hit her bare skin leaves her shuddering. 

It's expansive and big, the depths hiding something exquisitely beautiful under layers of hurt, layers of steam, layers of volcanic anger. But beneath all that, still lies the redden ball of pure heat -- of passion so hot, Jinsol needs to run. 

If her fingers don't crush her first, then the ocean surely will. 

"I'm sorry," she says instead, grasping at the small bubbles of air that float around her as her body falls deeper into the crevice of the sea. 

Jungeun remains, arms outstretched to catch her as she crosses white sand, barefoot.

Gentle hands caress her, and suddenly the two are swept into one another.

Jungeun is the ocean, and Jinsol the fragile seashell, fragmented by angry waves. 

\--

They're not meant for each other. 

That much is obvious. 

Everything they say is wrong, everything they do is opposite. 

And yet they grapple with one another, legs tangled against legs, frowns forcibly pushed into grins until they're fooling themselves as much as they're fooling the others.

\--

A relationship like this is bound to end. 

Jinsol expects an explosion. 

Instead, it's a gentle breeze. 

"I don't want to be here," Jungeun says softly. 

They're back in each others arms after another nasty fight. Jungeun has a scratch on her cheek, Jinsol a bruise on her shoulder. The ocean laps quietly at their outstretched feet, sand pressed against their backs. 

Jinsoul's eyes never leave the stars. 

"Oh."

"I don't want to do this anymore," Jungeun says again. She sounds like a child -- and with cruel satisfaction, Jinsol packs it into her heart to use for another time. 

_(Jungeun calls her childish all the time. Hypocrite.)_

"I don't want this," Jungeun says a little stronger this time. 

Jinsol continues to chase Orion's belt with her eyes. She loses track quickly, the stars blurring together into one massive haze.

"My legs feel numb," Jungeun says. Jinsol feels the same. The cold water had sucked the warmth from their skin long ago, and they had lost it to the depths of the ocean. "I can't feel my fingers."

Jinsol pulls herself upward. Her toes barely graze at the shoreline. 

Jungeun remains half submerged in black water. 

Neither look at each other.

"We should go. It's late."

"I don't want to," Jungeun's voice is weaker this time. "I don't want to. Leave me here."

"Jungeun."

"I'm sorry."

"Jungeun," she says again, louder this time. "Jungeun, stop."

But Jungeun continues. 

The moonlight colors her brown hair silver. Jinsol thinks she looks beautiful in the night. 

"I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for making you sad. I'm sorry for hurting you."

"Jungeun--"

"I hope you're okay. I don't want to do this anymore. Let me end it."

Jinsol feels an unfamiliar hurt claw at her chest. She doesn't know why the blood suddenly rushes to her ears, or why her face heats, or why her eyes prickle. She doesn't know why she sits silently, unable to do anything but listen to the ramblings of a girl ready to lose it all. 

"I love you. I think you're so beautiful. I think you're too good for me."

"Stop it."

"It's nice being numb, you know. I can't really feel my legs or arms anymore. The ocean is so beautiful. I've always wanted to see it from the bottom and look up to see the lights on top."

"Jungeun, please."

"Jinsol," there's a sharp intake. Jinsol notices her trembling hands for the first time. She notices the patches of dark sand, wet by tears. 

"Jinsol, I'm sorry." 

But sorries can only go so far. 

\--

Jinsol was born with a too large heart.

She feels the pain of the world, of all her friends, of her family. She feels the edges crumple and fold when the news turns on -- another war, another death. 

She feels it melt in her chest when she sees the tears of her loved ones. 

She was always sensitive -- childish, as Jungeun would say. 

But now she doesn't really feel. 

Jinsol doesn't feel anything when she sees the leaves lose color, she doesn't feel the same awe of when she stands at the edge of the Earth, toes digging into the sand, expansive ocean spread before her. 

She doesn't feel anything except a deep, deep guilt that burrows itself way into the core of her heart, nesting. It thrives with every heartbeat, eating her from the inside out, emptying what used to be an overflowing love for the world. 

Loneliness creeps the empty channels now.

A calm, familiar loneliness. 

(If she closes her eyes and pretends, the icy cold touch burns as much as the warmth of love.)

Jungeun still says hello to her. They still talk -- they still pretend. 

They never talk about the night at the beach. 

Jinsol never tells anyone about it. 

(It's all her fault anyways.)

Jungeun is okay now. She smiles normally. She laughs normally. 

Jinsol should be happy for her -- and she is. She is, she's so happy for her, but the guilt in her heart makes it hard to be happy for her because all she wants is for Jungeun to feel how terrifyingly comfortable it is when she curls her fingers around her neck and crushes the airways. 

She wants Jungeun to know how hard it is to breathe. How hard it is to stand against the world when a crushing guilt manifests into strong fingers that press into pale skin.

She wants Jungeun to feel the same darkness that pushes against the emptiness in her heart when her hand continues to clamp against her neck. 

The ocean is beautiful. 

The fine white sand beach is warm. 

The waves that lap against her skin is still very cold. 

Her hands leave her neck. 

Air pushes her chest forward. 

The loneliness settles again, filling the void in her heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> based after personal experiences. 
> 
> i'm sorry. i hope you're happy.


End file.
